Amped 3

Metachronos overall score = 7.5 / 10

Only on the XBOX 360
Genre: Snowboarding
Release Date: 16th November, 2005

Positive
- Style for miles
- Crazy storyline keeps you guessing
- Lengthy and eclectic soundtrack

Negative
- Not very challanging
- Unimpressive visuals

Taking a cue from the direction that the Neversoft's Tony Hawk series has taken over the past few entries, Amped 3 wraps up the single-player game in a linear story that puts you, as a unique-but-nameless snowboarder, in the lead role. Aside from your blank slate, there's your crew, which is pretty archetypal: there's Hunter, the spunky, mildly tomboyish girl; JDawg, who has snowboarding ambitions beyond goofing around with the crew; Sebastian, the spacey, plus-sized Zen guru; and WeinerBoy, who personifies a kind of spastic younger-brother energy. The story starts off predictably enough when your crew's vacation fund money gets stolen and you get pinned with the crime. The rest of your crew splits for Chile, bankrolled by a mysterious snowboarding sponsor. You head to Utah with your new friend Dandelion, a reformed hair-rocker now devoted to the obsessive, slightly creepy craft of scrapbooking, to try to earn back the stolen money and reconnect with your crew.



The game looks OK up close as well, with a pronounced difference in texture clarity and antialiasing between standard definition and HD. Though even in HD, the improvement over the graphical detail found on the original Xbox is incremental at best. There is a ton of bump-mapping on the snow, as well as on the characters' hair and clothing. Although, more often than not, this just gives the article in question that weird bump-mapped shine rather than a more-realistic look. Animations look good, though there tends to be a bit too much "snap" between animation routines when you try to execute a bunch of tricks in quick succession. Also, we noticed that, when in courses where there were a lot of obstacles, it was not entirely uncommon for the camera to get snagged on some piece of the environment. For the lion's share of our time with Amped 3, the frame rate was nice and smooth, though there was a small portion of one of the late-game maps (viewed in widescreen) that suffered a severe frame rate hit. It's a pretty minor point, but the severity of the choppiness was quite pronounced, and it made an already-difficult challenge exceptionally frustrating.

It's too bad that the gameplay in Amped 3 isn't more compelling, considering how amazing the story and the overall presentation of the game are. The upside, though, is that the gameplay is quite forgiving, so it's not too difficult to get to the really bizarre and enjoyable parts. Those who actually enjoyed the rather punishing nature of the gameplay in the previous Amped games may be disappointed in the direction that Indie Built has decided to go with Amped 3. But the end result proves to be one of the most original and refreshing games in the Xbox 360 launch lineup.

i played it, it's not bad

nice

it looks good but i bet it can be a lot better

yeah, graphics aren't that great